(Feb 27/15)Chris Grooms (Queens University), and Ronald Stefan Stewart (Jamaican Caves Organisation) completed a week of fieldwork yesterday. Seven pond sediment cores, and about a dozen water samples, were collected from various sites around the island, and a night was spent at Home Away Cave for capture/release and ultrasonic recording of bats. We'll post details and photos in the next few days.

(Feb 23/15)Jan has posted a great video of our visit to Noisy Water Cave on February 14. Be advised that it's very large (1.2 GB MP4), so don't attempt to download it if you have slow-speed, and/or a low bandwidth cap. JCO at Noisy Water Cave, Valentines Day, 2015.

Stef and Chris have been very busy coring pond sediments. As of this morning, we'll have no internet access until Friday.

(Feb 20/15)Dr John Smol's lecture at UWI on Thursday was excellent (apologies, but we couldn't record it). He's the same as Dr Brock Fenton, who initiated the guano sampling project along with the JCO - a total expert in his field who loves to share his knowledge in a way that everyone can understand. Much respect.

Chris and Stef will spend Friday taking core samples at ponds in Worthy Park to tie in with the Home Away samples collected previously in the project. On Saturday, we'll move on to the Moneague lakes, and Crystal Lake at Discovery Bay (near Green Grotto).

(Feb 19/15)Jan was on the radio Tuesday morning, Love 101 FM, talking about the importance of bats in Jamaica. We've posted a copy on our server, Bats in Jamaica - Feb 17/15 (29 MB MP3).

Stefan was at St Clair yesterday with some folks from Kingston. We only went as far as the Junction - was a cool little trip, and it helped to keep him in shape.

John Smol, one of the principal academics in the Home Away guano sampling project, will present a lecture at UWI tomorrow afternoon. Stefan and Jan will be there - we'll try to record it. The next day, Stefan and Chris Grooms will launch themselves into a week of serious field research - sediment coring/sampling in various spots around the island - capture and release, and ultrasonic recording of bats at Home Away - as part of the same, continuing project. We won't have internet access for most of it, so there will be no updates until we're done, and no email contact.

(Feb 16/15)We were contacted yesterday by Richard Swindells, who was with the Jamaican Caving Club in the past, with some very cool information on the "putative" blind cave fish at Jackson Bay Great Cave that we searched for last Nov 8. It isn't putative, and it really did get eaten by a cat before identification.

Richard, Mike Ashcroft, et al, were true pioneers, they did incredible work, and the JCO wouldn't be able to do much of what we do without them. Receiving that email was a wonderful thing We quote excerpts from it lower. Scans of a paper on the work, published in the Bulletin of the Scientific Research Council Vol 6 No 1 pp 13-19, forwarded by Richard, can be found in pdf in the following four files, JBC, 1965, 1, JBC, 1965, 2, JBC, 1965, 3, JBC, 1965, 4. A photo from the outing posted here can be clicked on for full size.

"I, along with others discovered parts of the cave system which was mapped with the resources we had at that time and the results were published in the Bulletin of the Scientific Research Council Vol 6 No 1 pp 13-19. Jackson's Bay Great Cave JCC. I can confirm that yes indeed we did find a "blind fish" which I clearly remember had what appeared to be scales over it's eyes. It was placed in a fish tank at the home of Dr Mike Ashcroft and I was told by Mike that his cat had caught and eaten it before any examination had been made. Mike (Medicine} and I (Chemistry) were at UWI Mona at the time. We made several visits to the cave late 64, early 65 and I have many photographs both colour and B&W. Hope this adds to the history of the cave. I now reside in Canada and have fond memories of my time in Jamaica especially on days like today when the wind chill makes it seem -37 C!!" [Email from Richard Swindell to the JCO, Feb 15, 2015].

Truly excellent stuff, and we're honoured that he contacted us.

The JCO had a great outing on Saturday at Noisy Water Cave, Cave River System, St Ann. The crew consisted of Jan, Stefan, Silvia, Lupe, Bogdan, Ashley, and three local youths whom we've known for a long time, led by Cujo. Many invasive Australian Red Claws were caught, most of which will be eaten by our local friends. Jan is working on the video, but one photo is posted above, and others can be found on Bogdan's Google page.

Adam Hyde, loyal and longstanding JCO member, has plans afoot to launch a much needed magazine, Caribbean Geographic, later this year. Stefan
(JCO webmaster) will take care of the website side of things. We posted a place-holder page today. There's no content yet, just a cool photo of Jan's Defender at Noisy Water on Saturday, but we're linking to it now to give the search engines a heads-up for when it becomes what it shall be. Caribbean Geographic.

(Feb 6/15)Stefan was rock-climbing at Lluidas Vale, St Catherine, with four visitors to the island on Monday. This weekend, a large group of folks from Kingston will hike the circle route out of Windsor in the Cockpit Country with the JCO. We appreciate the funding - it helps with the pro bono side - maintains the Land Rovers, website, gear replacement, etc, which is what makes it all possible.

The next JCO group outing will be at Noisy Water, Cave River System, on Feb 14 ('cause we love caves). Should be very cool. More to follow.

(Jan 31/15)Lavinia, who was with us recently, has posted some cool stuff with great photos on her blog about the visit, here and here.

(Jan 30/15)Stefan and Cliff were at Swansea Cave beyond the third collapse on Tue, Jan 27. We've posted a few short video clips on the JCO Facebook page.

(Jan 26/15)Stefan and Cliff visited Worthy Park Cave 2 today, reached the end at the fault, explored every possibility for continuation (we were in there for about 5 hours), and are fairly certain that it closes down too tight for humans to pass through. At the furthest accessible point, after a low pool, there is a bedding plain at the roof, flowstone on the floor, and a vertical height of about 20cm in between. Water, crabs, crayfish, etc, can continue, but not us.

Tomorrow, we'll push Swansea beyond the third collapse entrance to see if it continues past the mapped section (which we strongly suspect it does). It will involve a lot of crawling, and our knees will be beat up as hell by the end of it, but we're up for it. This is another main item on the to-do list.

Cliff is taking photos and video non-stop in the course of things, so we should have some interesting stuff to post in the next few days.

(Jan 25/15)Stefan and a visiting caver (Cliff) will be at Worthy Park Cave 2 tomorrow. It's our first visit to the site in about a year. The mission is to check the low, wet part at the end where it hits the transverse fault-line to see if there might be serious continuation. We certainly know that water gets through there somewhere heading to Riverhead Cave, or at least has in the past before the active flow moved lower to Worthy Park Cave 3 - it's just a question of if it's large enough for humans to access.

(Jan 22/15)Stefan has spent the last five days either hiking in the Cockpit Country (Windsor) or caving. Much of it has been with a caver volunteer from Romania via the USA, Lavinia, who if she were to move here would definitely be a core part of the JCO. Solid, fun to be with, and never complains. Unfortunately, she'll be gone on Saturday.

The next few days after that will be spent with more hiking in the CC, including a crossing of the Troy Trail, and two days of caving (Thatchfield and St Clair).

The guano sampling project will resume in February with Chris Grooms (Queens Univeristy). This time, we'll collect pond core sediments to tie in some external data, and record time-expansion echolocation calls at Home Away to determine the species make-up. Should be cool.

Jan has recently assisted UWI herp researchers (led by our bredren, Dr Byron Wilson) in the Cockpit Country at Quick Step. We should have news to post on how it went soon.

However, we have much else to do in the interim that doesn't involve poisonous air. High on the to-do list are New Green Cave to complete exploration and mapping, Morgans Pond Hole (second deepest cave in Jamaica) for water sampling, the Cave River System for monitoring and capture of the invasive Australian Red Claw (which tastes great with garlic and butter), and Coffee River Cave to video document the entire extent. We'll also strive to update the website more often to share our discoveries.

(Jan 5/15)Stefan was at St Clair Cave yesterday with two Canadian visitors (Vincent and Rebecca, who were very solid and cool, as most Canadians are). All went well despite spending more time finding the Zambia entrance than we'd planned - between deforestation that altered the look of everything since the last visit a year ago to that entrance, and changes in the older tracks that got us there in the past, it came down to a GPS point and vague memories of the topography.

Before exiting the Polly Ground entrance, we went a little way into the Inferno passage (largest bat-roost in Jamaica). There had obviously been a flushing event during the rains of Nov-Dec - the water was fairly clear. Worthy Park will probably start pressing cane in a few weeks, and the waste water input to the Acheron will again create the high BOD that makes the air poisionous (O2 down to 7.5%). So, any further exploration in the Acheron has to be done as soon as possible. This is the last part of the window of opportunity for this year.

(Jan 1/15)The JCO would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. For us, 2014 was a wonderful year, and we expect 2015 to be just as good, or better. There are many caves for us to still explore, and depths of the Cockpit Country still to reach. Our best days are in the future, as are all of yours.

(Dec 27/14)Jan has posted the full video of our outing at Windsor Cave on Dec 20 (Warning: Very large file - 917 MB mp4), from the main Windsor entrance through to Bamboo Bottom. This is the first good video recorded for the entire tranverse. It's also going up to the Facebook page and the Youtube channel (still in progress, takes a while), but they'll be lower-res once they're processed. The highest-resolution copies will always be found here on the JCO server.

Stef was at Thatchfield Cave yesterday with a couple of very cool visitors to the island. We came across a second species of Amblypygid during the course of it, quite different than the usual one we see. Identification is on the to-do list.

(Dec 23/14)We've done a little house-cleaning on the JCO News page and shunted the items from January, 2011, to January 1, 2013, onto a separate page, JCO News Archives - Volume 10. We need to make way for all the great stuff we'll post in 2015.

(Dec 21/14)The JCO had a Christmas outing at Windsor Great Cave yesterday. The participants were Ivor Conolley, Lupe Malagon and her daughters, Daniella and Diana, Silvia Kouwenberg, Jan Pauel, and Stefan Stewart. We travelled from the Windsor entrance to the Bamboo Bottom entrance, then retraced our steps, covering about 4 km total underground. As usual with Windsor Cave, it was a bit tough, but everything went well. Despite all the rain recently, the main passage wasn't flooded at the south end, or as far as we could determine, in the lower streamway.

A wonderful bonus for the trip was the observation of a Jamaican Yellow Boa ( Epicrates subflavus) on the way out (spotted by Lupe), which was spending the day curled under a breakdown boulder about 150m inside of the main entrance. Jan recorded some great video and photos, one of which, the snake, is posted here (click on the pic for high-res). We'll put more on the server and the Youtube channel as soon as possible.

(Dec 4/14)A planned JCO outing (Stewart, Pauel, Conolley, Hyde, Kouwenberg, Malagon) last Saturday to St Clair was cancelled due to very heavy rains and the associated danger (getting swept away into the river on either the approach, or retreat). As it turned out, it was a wise decision - the Bog Walk Gorge flooded that afternoon, and even if we'd managed the cave, it would have been extremely difficult for the Kingston-based crew to reach home.

However, the next group outing will be in just a couple of weeks. This time, we'll be overnighting it in the Cockpit Country at the Last Resort from Friday to Sunday, and on Saturday, we'll make the first full traverse of Windsor Great Cave (Windsor to Bamboo Bottom) in several years. Should be epic. We'll have more light than ever before, and better video cameras than ever before. We'll be able to give everyone else an idea of what it's really like.

In support of it, Stewart was in the Cockpit Country at Windsor yesterday, December 3, sussing things. There was no flow from the resurgence entrance, and the upper Martha Brae springs were dry (indicating a lowered phreatic zone compared to a month ago, during the Knox College hike, when they were active). We anticipate total success on the mission. Either way, we'll try it come hell or high water.

(Nov 13/14)The JCO was at Jackson Bay Great Cave last Saturday, November 8, in search of a putative blind cave fish. Vague stories have been handed down over the years of a cave-obligate fish collected there decades ago that was then eaten by a pet cat before identification. If true, it would be the only known record for a stygobitic fish in Jamaica.

We were successful in that we did capture and release two fish, both the same species, but neither had reduced eyes or lack of pigmentation. Identification is pending, however, we do not believe it to be cave-obligate.

(Oct 28/14)
Our bat survey work at the Wigton Wind Farm is now part of the public record (via NEPA), so we feel it appropriate to post the report in its entirety on our server in pdf. We hope the data recorded may be of value to others.

(Jul 23/14)Our apologies for the lack of updates lately - we've been busy with research fieldwork (wind farm bat surveys). There's much to share, which we'll attend to. For now, we unfortunately have to report that we're removing another body from a deep sinkhole tomorrow, this time in north St Elizabeth. We've been told that it's 175 feet deep (~55m), but we won't know for sure until we go down.

We're not looking forward to this, but the day will end with bat fieldwork at the Wigton wind farm expansion (body in the morning, bats at night), which will be much more enjoyable. We'll post reports on all of it early next week.

(Dec 10/13)The rainy season component
of the Malvern wind farm bat EIA was finished last weekend. So far,
we've collected data for bats at 18 sites. Next comes an interim report
that puts the information into a useable form for NEPA, et al, which
will be soon done. A few weeks after that, we return to look at all of
the sites again in the dry season.

The photo to the right is of the smaller of the two fruit-eating bats
found in Jamaica, Ariteus flavescens (aka the Jamaican fig-eating bat),
taken last weekend (capture and release). The Ariteus is endemic to Ja
(only lives here), and is also the only species in its genus. Quite a
cool, little critter, and we're always glad to find them.

During the EIA hiatus over Christmas, we'll arrange a JCO group caving
outing or two. We need to take a break from the ratbats, and get some of
our bredren and sistren underground again. Sites that need work are
Crofts River Two for mapping and exploration, St Clair Zambia Entrance
to recover gear and finish exploration, and possibly a return to the
Acheron at St Clair.

For long term projects, 2014 is a brand new year, and we intend to stay
busy. The possible blind cave fish at Jackson's Bay is high priority,
as is mapping and assessments of a number of sites on our to-do list,
and research into the caves of the Goat Islands.

(Dec 5/13)Stewart and Pauel will be
back in St Elizabeth tomorrow working on the wind farm EIA. We would
like to note that the company constructing the turbines is receptive to
our suggestions with regard to minor changes in site location
(micro-siting) based on our research so far. It could be key in
preventing a negative impact on the bats living in the area, and we're
glad to see their recognition of the importance of bats to Jamaica.

(Nov 28/13)Our apologies for the lack of News items recently, but we've been busy, and will make amends for it now.

First off, Stewart and Pauel have to date completed 13 nights of capture
and release netting at the Santa Cruz Mountains as part of a wind farm
environmental impact assessment, which leaves 7 more nights to go as
part of the rainy season component. We'll be back at it this weekend.
Along with netting at the turbine sites, we've determined that Blair's
Cave is a duplicate of Campus Cave, and have good recon info for
another, with a visit planned for this wekend. Our main priority is to
locate the site listed as Palm Tree Cave, which we believe to be the
best/only real bat cave in the area.

Also, Stewart has recently assisted several arachnologists studying cave
spiders at Carambie Cave, and Hartie Caves 1 and 2, plus visited the
Peterkin-Rota system in St James, St Clair Cave in St Catherine, and
taken a large group of people from the NHT across the Troy-Windsor
Trail.

With regard to the St Clair visit, which happened this morning, feces of what we believe to be a yellow boa, Epicrates subflavus,
were found inside of the main, Polly Ground, entrance, and in the
Junction area of the cave. We've seen it before at the Zambia entrance,
but not there. It seems there's a viable population hanging on in the
hills south of Ewarton.

(Oct 18/13)Pauel and Stewart will
begin fieldwork next week on the bat component of an environmental
impact assessment (EIA) for a planned wind farm in the Santa Cruz
Mountains, St Elizabeth, being constructed by Blue Mountain Renewables.
This component will be a first for Jamaica, so we intend to be very
thorough, and try to establish a method that might serve as a model for
future projects here, and in the wider Caribbean. The funding we receive
as part of it will also enable us to carry out more of our pro bono
work, for which we are very grateful. The data collected will initially
be proprietal, but at some point it will become public, and we hope to
receive permission to publish a paper based on it once it is.

(Oct 3/13)The website admin was
off-island for the last couple of weeks, with no internet access, but is
back a yard and tings a gwaan. First up, some info on the cave in St
Catherine visited by Pauel and Conolley on August 25. Locally, it is
known as Archer Cave, but we believe it is the site listed as Top
Mountain Cave in Jamaica Underground. The cave was found to contain a
Taino petroglyph by the JCO crew, and is now listed in the JCO database
with that information.

November is shaping up to be quite busy, with a couple of crossings of
the Troy-Windsor Trail planned, a search for the giant swallowtail
butterfly (Papilio homerus) in the Cockpit Country, and probable
work on an EIA for a project in south St Elizabeth. We're hopeful that
we'll be able to post more on that next week.

(Sept 10/13)A group led by the JCO was
at Swansea Cave in Lluidas Vale over the weekend. The visit went well
and we'd like to thank everyone who was with us for coming along. We'll
do something similar at a different cave in a month or so.

(Aug 28/13)The JCO is very concerned
about GoJ plans to give the Goat Islands to the Chinese, which will have
a severe impact on the Portland Bight Protected Area (PBPA). The PBPA
is the most pristine area of dry coastal forest left in Jamaica, and
harbours many rare species (e.g. the Ja iguana). There are also a number
of important caves that have Taino artefacts, Neogene fossils, and
large bat colonies. We will post a dedicated page soon that supplies
more information.

(Aug 27/13)The Jamaican Caves
Organisation will carry out a fund-raising outing at Swansea Cave on
either the weekend of Aug 31/Sept 1 or Sept 7-8, depending on interest.

Swansea Cave, in Lluidas Vale, St Catherine, was first recorded by De la
Beche in 1827, and first mapped by the Geological Survey Dept of
Jamaica in 1960. It is quite long (over 1km), and still not completely
explored in its further stretches. Physically, it is beautiful, with
many fine formations, and biologically, it is important, with a large
bat-roost, and a variety of cave-adapted invertebrates that include the
rare endemic Onychophoran, Speleoperipatus spelaeus, which is known from
only two sites in Jamaica.

The hike to the entrance is easy, and takes only 10 minutes, and the
drive to where we park is 1 1/2 hours from Kingston, mostly along the
A1. On the way, near Worthy park, we will visit a location with several
fine Taino petroglyphs, and then head to the cave itself where we will
spend about two hours underground.

The cost of the outing is 2,000 J$ per person. We do not supply food, but we do supply helmets, headlamps, and expertise.

For more information, please contact Stefan at info@jamaicancaves.org or 876 397 7488.

(Aug 2/13)Friends at UWI have
forwarded some interesting aerial photos of a cave entrance in
Hellshire, one of which is posted to the right. At this point, we don't
know if it's listed, or unlisted and unexplored, but we intend to find
out first chance. This depends on funding (more on that lower).

What we can deduce from the photos is that it seems to be
rift-developed, and there appears to be some degree of continuation (it
certainly isn't a shelter cave). If it's similar to caves in the sister
karst of Portland Ridge, it could be extensive, and because of a
relatively thin layer of surface material above, could have multiple
collapse entrances. With regard to biota, notable likely residents are
bats, and yellow boa (Jamaica's largest snake).

On funding, in a general sense - we're going to post something we
usually don't - a proposal, with a budget (although we often write
them). It has to do with a search for a possible blind cave fish that
was reported at Jackson's Bay Great Cave (JBC) several decades ago. We
have reason to think it still exists, and if it does, our research will
be the only definite record of a cave-obligate fish so far in Jamaica.
The odds are good that it will be a new species.

The JBC proposal posted here
was written in response to a request from an environmental foundation
in the Portland Bight area. However, to date, they don't have the funds
to go ahead, and we don't have the funds to do it pro bono. We invite
sponsors to help make it possible. More details are available upon
request.

(Jul 22/13)A few of the principal JCO
members have been on hiatus this month for various reasons, but things
will kick up come August. On the to-do list are Jackson's Bay Cave (in
search of a blind fish), Thatchfield (in search of an undiscovered
entrance), the rest of the sites we haven't assessed yet in St Elizabeth
(mostly pro bono for NEPA), and possibly some bat monitoring near
Smokey Hole (the only large bat-roost in south Manchester). We also hope
to arrange a group outing or two - more to follow on that, here and on
the Facebook page.

(Jul 3/13)Pauel and Stewart (JCO)
were at Jamaica's longest cave, Gourie, last Saturday, June 29, 2013, to
establish if the outer part of the cave between the three entrances can
be visited safely by the general public during the rainy season. Our
investigation indicated that this is so if certain precautions are
taken. We've posted an interim report here, Gourie Cave - June 29, 2013, as well as a video that accompanies it, which is available in high resolution on our server, Gourie Cave Video - June 29, 2013 - High Resolution (826 MB MP4 - Very large file!), and in lower resolution on our YouTube channel, Gourie Cave - YouTube.

Pauel and Stewart will be in the field this weekend at Gourie Cave, in Manchester.

(Jun 20/13)Kouwenberg, Pauel, and
Stewart were at Thatchfield Cave last Sunday, June 16, with two guests.
An interesting observation was made - one of the frogs, Eleutherodactylus cundalli,
was heard deep in the cave in the area of the avens. This frog is only
found in caves near entrances. We have been sure for some time that
another entrance exists somewhere within the "new" cave, as evidenced by
a constant breeze flowing inward at the constriction that leads from
the "old" cave. We've suspected that the unfound entrance might be in
the area of the avens, and we now have another data point that
reinforces the possibility.

In April, Van Rentergem and Stewart carried out an accurate line survey
from the avens to the lighthole entrance, where a good GPS position has
been recorded. The survey stations for the avens were then turned into
GPS waypoints so that a surface search for the entrance could take
place, similar to how we found the new, third entrance of St Clair Cave.
However, the positions were found to be on the other side of a cow
pasture (with resident cows), and as we had no pyro (tick spray) with
us, and no desire to become infested with nasty, little ectoparasites,
we declined to complete the search. A return, armed with pyro, is now
very high on our to-do list.

(May 17/13)Stewart will make a solo
run across the Troy Trail this Sunday/Monday in support of future work.
No one has been across in over a year, and considering that Hurricane
Sandy came through last October 24, we expect the trail to be a bit of a
mess. Recon is in order. The plan is to hike to the south end (Tyre,
near Troy) on Sunday, overnight it, and then hike back to Windsor on
Monday. If he goes missing in the course of it, he'll have at least
disappeared in the part of the world that he loves the most.

The following weekend, Stewart, Hyde, and others will be in the field
working on JCO projects. The tentative plan is a return to Swansea Cave
to search for more Onychophora. This critter, Speleoperipatus spelaeus,
also known as a velvet walking worm, is an incredibly rare cave
invertebrate known from only 5 specimens, one of which the JCO found in
the past at Swansea (the other 4 were found by Peck at Pedro Cave, not
far away).

(May 14/13)Another fund-raising hike
will take place in the Cockpit Country on May 18. We'd like to thank
Marguerite Phillips for helping to set it up. If possible, we'd like to
do these outings every other weekend. More info can be found at a new
page we've put online, Caving and Hiking for Jamaicans.

(May 5/13)Stef and Carema were
hiking in the Cockpit Country yesterday, Saturday, with some JCO
supporters. It went well, and we all enjoyed it, We'd like to thank
Nicole, Johan, Yanique, Nick, Marta, and Isabella for being with us.

(Apr 30/13)Adam Hyde, Silvia
Kouwenberg, and Stefan Stewart were at Worthy Park Cave 2 on Sunday,
April 28. The team succeeded in reaching the known end, 750m into the
cave, and searched out potential routes for continuation. On that, time
ran short, but we found at least one possibility that we will return to
when time permits.

A different species of roach than what we're familiar with in Ja caves
(P. americana) was found in abundance at the only roosting area for
bats, about 200m in. One specimen was collected, which has been stored
in 70% ethyl until we can forward it to our friends at UWI for
identification.

The morphology of the cave is very particular. Bedding is strong and
distinct throughout. In parts, it's controlled by the strike (90 degrees
to the dip/slope), although this is less apparent in other sections. At
the very end of the passage is an obvious fault, perpendicular, which
is very impressive. At this point the passage is mostly blocked by large
breakdown slabs, but a way can be found through that leads to what
might be a sumped continutation through a bedding plane. Although much
of the passage is relatively low (1-5m), several large chambers open up
en route where obvious joints intersect.

The entire cave is well-decorated, with very fine formations (stals,
columns, flowstone, rimstone pools), and it is truly one of the more
beautiful caves on the island. That said, periodic flooding has
deposited very slippery silt/mud in parts, the rock is sharp
(echinolith), there's a vertical pitch of 12m through rocks to even
enter it, so it's not particularly easy to explore. Along with that,
there's a flood-risk during heavy rains. We ask that any who read this
post not get themselves into trouble just to have a look.

(Apr 25/13)JCO members Conolley,
Hyde, and Stewart attended an interview at the Institute of Sustainable
Development - University of the West Indies in Kingston yesterday
regarding the Cockpit Country boundary. We'd like to thank Dr Webber and
his associates for the opportunity to share our view of the boundary,
and also supply reasons why we think it is so important to preserve the
area within.

The JCO will be underground this weekend at Worthy Park Cave 2. None of
us have been to the furthest part of what is one of Jamaica's more
impressive river caves, and we're very much looking forward to it.

(Apr 22/13)A meeting of the Cockpit
Country Stakeholders Group took place last Friday, April 19, at the
Jamaica Environmental Trust (JET) offices in Kingston regarding the
recently released University of the West Indies (UWI) study
(8 Mb pdf), commisioned by the government in 2007 to define the Cockpit
Country boundary. RS Stewart attended for the Jamaican Caves
Organisation (JCO).

The JCO generally supports the UWI study. It is a close match to what we
used as the boundary in 2005 for the Parks in Peril Project, funded by
The Nature Conservancy, and agrees with what our group has always
thought of as the Cockpit Country. We would like to commend the authors,
Mitchell, Miller, Ganapathy, and Spence for producing what we believe
is a fine piece of work.

We don't know where things will go from here - whether the GoJ will
again consider mining in the Cockpit Country, for bauxite or limestone -
but whatever happens, the members of the JCO commit themselves to
helping to protect Jamaica's last wilderness area. It's the heart and
soul of the island, and can't be lost.

(Apr 18/13)The JCO has been very
active lately, despite the lack of News updates. We'll start posting
reports, photos, and videos very soon on what we've been doing. For now,
the first order of business is to address the passing of our dear
friend and JCO member, Dr David Lee, on April 2, 2013.

Dr Lee's participation in Jamaican caving extended for decades. He was
one of the first members of the University Caving Club, which went on to
become the Jamaica Caving Club. Afterwards, he became part of the JCO,
thereby being part of every organised caving group in existence in
Jamaica from the very beginning until his recent passing. For us in the
JCO, he was not only a fine man, and caver, to have with us, he was our
continuity with the past, and a wonderful source of stories on how
things were in the early days.

To give you an idea of how fine a man Dr Lee was, we'd like to relate a
story that came into all of our minds when we heard of what had
happened:

On May 18, 2005, a group from the JCO descended into a deep shaft called
Minocal's Glory Hole located in the wilds of the southern Cockpit
Country near a small village called Quick Step. With us were several
people from an environmental group, and also two employees of the
Jamaican Information Service, JIS. As usual, we needed someone we could
trust to watch the rope at the the top, and take care of other important
matters at the surface. This would be Dr Lee. With him were a couple of
others who declined to descend into the depths.

Because there were so many of us, it took a very long time to get
everyone down, and back up the shaft. In fact, the last of us weren't up
until 10 PM. Rain had begun to fall steadily in the afternoon, and
continued until we were finally done. In that non-stop drenching
downpour, Dr Lee remained at his station, hour after hour, with no
shelter whatsoever. The others who had stayed above retreated to their
dry cars, parked on the road nearby, well before dark, and as the people
from the enviro group and JIS reached the top, they also retreated. But
not Dr Lee. He stayed there at the top of that pit, soaking wet, until
the last of us were up, this happening as people much younger than him
fled to get warm and dry. The JCO members who came up last never forgot
that day. He stayed in place until he knew we were all safe, on the
surface. We cannot tell you how much we respected and loved him for
that.

For us, Dr Lee will never be gone. He will always be in our hearts and minds, and he will always be part of the JCO.

(Apr 10/13)We received sad news
earlier in the week - Dr David Lee, one of Jamaica's most stalwart
cavers for decades, has passed away. There will be a memorial tomorrow,
April 11, at the UWI chapel in Kingston, which will be attended by
several JCO members. We'll post information here soon on Dr Lee's great
contributions to speleo research on the island.

The JCO has been in the field for the last ten days. Amongst other
things, we've descended Dunns Hole Cave, determined that Entrance 2 at
Thatchfield Great Cave does not connect to the rest of the cave for
anything larger than a cat, and found that the sump from Peterkin Cave
to Rota Cave could be dived (the passage is wide enough to have allowed a
very large log to pass through). More on all of this soon.

(Feb 26/13)Jan Pauel will deliver a
presentation at UTech this Thursday, February 28. The flyer advertising
the event can be seen to the right.

(Feb 19/13)Areport on the caves of Portland Bight
has been sent to the Caribbean Coastal Area Management Foundation
(C-CAM) at their request. It has also been posted on the website in pdf
via the link above.

(Feb 11/13)The JCO met with a
consultant (pro bono) from UTech yesterday, Sunday, regarding Forestry
Dept plans for recreational activity at the Gourie lands, which includes
the longest cave in Jamaica. Generally, we have no objections. If it's done properly, it will conform to the JCO cave protection guidelines.We appreciate being kept in the loop, and will be glad to be of further assistance as things proceed.

(Feb 10/13)Stewart was at St Clair
Cave yesterday, February 9, with Michelle and Andy Svoboda, and their
two children, Andrew and Curtis. During the course of it, he made a
quick foray into the Inferno passage to check conditions. The water is
still fairly clear, without too much bat guano accumulated yet since
last autumn's flushing, and the biological oxygen demand (BOD) seems to
be low. We can surmise that there's still access to the Inferno+, but
the air quality at the Acheron is probably very poor because of WP input
as indicated by last weekend's visit to Riverhead Cave. This matches
the conditions during the Acheron discovery visit by Stewart and Van
Rentergem in March, 2006.

Also, the first definite plans for the April expedition with Guy Van
Rentergem are in place. On Mar 31 - April 1, we'll be on the Quick Step -
Windsor Trail in the western Cockpit Country. As far as we know, no one
has crossed it in well over a year. We'll start from Windsor in the
north, overnight it near the south end (still in the depths of the bush,
and the middle of the Cockpit Country is magical at night), and then
hike back to Windsor the next day. Any others who would like to join us
for our little adventure are welcome to do so as long as they're
prepared to rough it, be brave (no whining allowed, and we really mean
that), be good on their feet, and kick in 2,000 J$ each toward JCO
funding.

(Feb 6/13)Stewart, of the JCO, was
contacted yesterday via email and phone by Alison Gillespie, a reporter
for the magazine, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, regarding
proposed international guidelines on bat guano mining.
The JCO policy is that there is no such thing as sustainable guano
mining, at least in a Jamaican context, and he did his best to share
arguments in support of that position.

Pauel, of the JCO, forwarded a photo yesterday (pro bono, and by
request) of a Taino petroglyph taken at Lluidas Vale on January 26 to an
author, Fred Kennedy, who has a second book coming out this year from
Ian Randle Publishers, which deals with the life of a Taíno cacique in
Jamaica at the time of the arrival of Columbus.

Stewart will be in Lluidas Vale this weekend continuing the search for incredibly small snails (2mm), Carychium sp., in assistance to Adrienne Jochum, a European researcher.

(Feb 4/13)Hyde and Stewart pushed
past the first sump of Riverhead Cave yesterday, but terrible air made
any further exploration impossible. By comparison of physical symptoms
to previous cave visits when an O2 metre was available, we estimate the
oxygen to have been under 14%. The return swim through the sump was one
of the more frightening things that the writer of this, Stewart, has
done so far in a Jamaican cave - he felt suffocatingly close to blacking
out. We'll have some photos and a bit of video to post in a day or two.

Please note how strongly-bedded the cave is, as shown by the flat roof,
and distinct strata on the walls. This may be part of the reason why the
cave is collapsed in three places - the lateral development is very
much horizontal, and the resultant cross-section isn't as structurally
stable as if it were circular. The initial development does appear to
have been phreatic (totally submerged) as evidenced by scalloping on the
roof, which in poorly-bedded limestone would have created a cylindrical
passage - here, most of the mechanical erosion was sideways.

.
(Jan 29/13)The Lluidas Vale outing on
Saturday, January 26, went well. Everyone seems to have enjoyed
themselves, plus we documented some very well-preserved petroglyphs. The
group consisted of Michelle Braham, Tom Casali, Dr Ivor Conolley, Gigi
Forbes, Professor Silvia Kouwenberg, Jan Pauel, Stefan Stewart, Claire
Turner, Roger Turner, Andrew Wildish, Tanya Clarke Wildish, and William
Wildish. Two sites were visited - the Taino petroglyph location, and
Swansea Cave. The photo seen above was taken after Swansea - as you can
see, there's a bit of crawling through mud involved in spots. More
details will follow, and we'll post a video here, and on the JCO YouTube
channel, in the next couple of days. Two other photos, of the glyphs,
can be found on the JCO Facebook page. - no need to sign in if you don't have a Facebook account - it's available for everyone, just like our website.

(Jan 24/13)The group visiting Swansea
this Saturday will include, along with the Potoo Hole crew, a few
friends from Worthy Park in Lluidas Vale. We would like to remind
everyone that the official rum of the JCO is Rum Bar, from Worthy Park Estate. It tastes the best, it's the strongest, and reasonably priced.

(Jan 23/13)Stef was at Lluidas Vale
yesterday with Gordon Clarke of Worthy Park learning the location of
Taino petroglyphs found on the walls of a rock shelter fairly close to
the village itself. A visit with many of the same team who were at Potoo
Hole on January 12 will take place this Saturday, followed by a visit
to Swansea Cave. We'll have some good photos and video to post next
week.

The JCO is pleased to announce that one of our most important members,
Guy Van Rentergem, will be on-island for a two-week expedition during
the first half of April. We're starting a to-do list that will include
some of the most challenging work we've intended to do for some time.
More to follow as plans progress.

(Jan 16/13)We've posted the video for Potoo Hole (200 MB MP4), taken during our visit on Saturday, January 12, 2013.

(Jan 15/13)Several members of the JCO
were at Potoo Hole, Portland Ridge, Clarendon, on Saturday with a group
of archaeologists and adventurers from the University of the West
Indies, in Kingston. The full team consisted of Diana Pena Bastalla,
Michelle Braham, Norris Campbell, Dr Ivor Conolley, Trécharspoetica
Dacres, Adam Hyde, Professor Silvia Kouwenberg, Jan Pauel, Heidi Savery,
Stefan Stewart, and David Twyman. We'll post a video later this week.

(Jan 10/13)Conolley, Hyde, and Pauel
will be at Portland Ridge, south Clarendon, this weekend investigating
Amerindian pictograms and petroglyphs with several guests.

(Jan 7/13)We were at Jackson's Bay
Great Cave on Saturday, January 5, and managed to find two more of the
entrances from the inside, the Hendricks Holes. Today, we'll be at the
Peterkin-Rota system in St James for monitoring. On Tuesday, we'll be in
Windsor, Trelawny, trying to find very small snails (<2mm), called
Carychium, in assistance to a European researcher. Later in the week,
we'll probably be with the Water Resources Authority at Riverhead cave,
near Ewarton, in St Catherine.